The Vatican has just announced the Pope’s first trip abroad since the pandemic hit – to Iraq next March – but there have been no developments yet on when he will reschedule his visit to Malta, the Curia said yesterday.

Pope Francis was meant to have visited the island on May 30 and 31 but preparations were suspended soon after the first cases of COVID-19 were detected here.

Back in March, the Archbishop’s Curia said the date of the trip would be determined at a ‘later stage’.

On Monday, a Curia spokesperson said: “We have no new date so far and no developments of when the trip will take place. There have been no developments since the postponement of the trip was announced.”

The Pope was to have arrived on May 30, visiting Gozo early in the evening and paying a visit to the Ta’ Pinu shrine.

The following morning, he would have led Mass on the Granaries and then visited St Paul’s Grotto, in Rabat, before lunch at the residence of the Apostolic Nuncio.

In the afternoon, the plan was to meet migrants at ħal Far before heading to the airport for his departure.

The Iraq trip will take place between March 5 and 8.

“He will visit Baghdad, the plain of Ur… the city of Erbil, as well as Mosul and Qaraqosh in the plain of Nieveh,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni announced.